Best Notes Chrome Extensions in 2026, Compared (Free)

A notes extension can be a scratchpad in a sidebar, a clipper into a cloud account, or a full notes app. They solve different problems, so the right one depends on where you want your notes to end up.

We compared four in 2026.

1. TypeFire for Chrome: a Markdown notes app in a tab

Price: Free. Pro is one $18 purchase, shared with the Mac app.

TypeFire opens a folder of Markdown files on your computer, an Obsidian vault included, and edits it in place in the same live preview editor as the TypeFire Mac app. Type [[ to link a note, see what links back, keep several notes open in tabs like a browser, and see how everything connects in a graph. Nothing in a file changes unless you typed it.

It is also a text expander and a clipboard manager, and the Spotlight that opens over any page finds a note as fast as a snippet. With Pro, every save keeps a version you can roll back to.

Strengths: Real Markdown files you own, wikilinks, backlinks, tabs, a graph, several vaults; snippets and clips in the same extension

Read more on the Markdown notes in Chrome page, or add TypeFire to Chrome.

2. Google Keep: quick notes in your Google account

Price: Free.

The Google Keep extension has 8,000,000 users and a 4.0 rating from 8K reviews. It saves URLs, text and images from a page into Keep with labels and notes, and Keep syncs to the web, Android, iOS and Wear.

Where it wins: notes that live in your Google account and are on your phone a second later.

3. Note Sidebar: a scratchpad beside the page

Price: Free.

Note Sidebar has about 60,000 users and a 4.4 rating from 117 reviews. It opens a notes panel in the browser sidebar with rich text, fonts and paper styles, dark mode, text to speech, password protection and export to a text file.

Where it wins: a quick place to type beside the page, with nothing to set up.

4. Obsidian Web Clipper: a clipper into your vault

Price: Free, open source.

Obsidian Web Clipper has over 1,000,000 users and a 4.8 rating from 576 reviews. It saves whole pages, selections or highlights from the web into an Obsidian vault as Markdown, with templates that fill in a page's metadata.

Where it wins: getting web pages into a vault. It is a clipper rather than an editor, so it pairs well with TypeFire: the clipper writes pages into your vault, and TypeFire edits the vault in a tab.

Feature comparison

Which should you pick?

Choose TypeFire for Chrome if you want a real Markdown notes app in your browser, on files you own, with snippets and clips beside it.

Choose Google Keep if your notes should live in your Google account and on your phone.

Choose Note Sidebar if you want a scratchpad and nothing more.

Add Obsidian Web Clipper if you clip a lot of pages into a vault, alongside TypeFire for editing it.

On a Mac, the TypeFire Mac app opens the same folder natively, with Quick Look for Markdown in Finder and sync between your Macs.